Cpl W G Bamforth

(Details supplied courtesy of Mr Bamforth’s son.)

My father, 2587108 Cpl Bamforth W.G., Royal Corps of Signals, formerly 14th Line section, 2nd North Midland Corps Signals (TA), afterwards 14th Line Section No 2 Company 2nd Air Formation Signals, A.A.S.F., B.E.F., survived the sinking after spending several hours in the water. He was discharged from the army owing to injuries received in September 1940 and died aged 80 in 1985. Several lads from his section, all from Glossop Derbyshire died that day, something he never forgot. Most like him had joined the Corps in 1938 in Glossop, Derbyshire.

Section: Letters – Courtesy of The Echo

Letter: VIEWPOINT – Scars of war

YESTERDAY was the 25th Anniversary of the end of the Falklands war and quite rightly the nation remembered those who fought, those who lost their lives and those who received such injuries to body and mind that they may never recover.
We also remember the families of those brave men and women.
However, on Sunday 17th June it is the 67th Anniversary of the greatest maritime disaster of all time. The troopship Lancastria packed with sailors, soldiers and airmen was preparing to leave the French port at St Nazaire when she was bombed, and machine gunned and was sunk by enemy action.
That day upwards of 4000 men lost their lives.
The disaster was so great and, coming hard and fast on the heels of Dunkirk, that the government of the day would not release the news; it was finally acknowledged by an American newspaper, I believe the
New York Times.
I was only five years old and Thank God my father was one of the survivors but I do recall my mother visiting him in hospital and I know he carried the scars all his life.